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Historic1
In 1842, the American physician and professor of physiology, Joseph Rhodes Buchanan (1814-1899), attended General Polk, also from the USA, telling him that when he touched bronze, he felt a tremor in the nervous system, and then a strange taste bothered him.
Buchanan, for some years, carried out experiments, placing metals of various kinds in the hands of different patients, who, with no means of recognizing these metals, correctly named them in most experiments; such patients, placed before sick people, defined the disease and located it; by placing any object, from the present or the remote past, on the forehead of “sleepwalkers” (mediums), he observed the effects of the mesmerian magnetic fluid (vital fluid, transformed from universal cosmic fluid) in these patients, who then described scenes related to times of the person to whom the psychometric object belonged.
In 1849, the doctor and professor created the term “Psychometrics” (from the Greek psykhe, soul + metron, measure, the French psychométrie)2 and in 1886 his work, dealing with the subject, was published.
The word psychometrics was in effect for many years among parapsychologists, until many of them, disagreeing with that term for such a faculty, thought it would be more appropriate to designate it as “Extra-Sensory Perception” (“ESP”), according to a classification formulated by Joseph Banks Rhine (1895-1980), an adept of Parapsychology3, who in 1934 published a work with that name (“ESP”), thus renaming Psychometrics.
Spiritism and Psychometrics
According to several spiritist scholars, Psychometrics is the mediumistic faculty by which the medium, in contact with objects, people or places related to past events, is so attuned to them, describing them with precision.
Some spiritist authors even include not only the past, but also the present and the future, in the scope of precise information on particularities and phenomena linked to objects, places and people, near or far, incarnated or disincarnated.
Already in Kardec's time there were news of facts related to Psychometrics, as the text below proves:
"A. C. Styles, a lucid medium, guarantees an accurate diagnosis of the illness of the person present, under loss of fees. Strictly observed rules: For a lucid examination and prescriptions, with the person present, 2 dollars; for psychometric character descriptions, $ 3. Do not forget that consultations are paid in advance”.
(In: Revista Espirita – “Exploração do Espiritismo”, July / 1861, p. 314).
Several spiritist literary works allude to Psychometrics.
I will mention just a few.
● In my opinion on Psychometrics, the spiritist work that offers the most reflections and thoughts is the one by Ernesto Bozzano (1862-1943), a spiritist researcher, Italian, professor of philosophy of science: Enigmas da Psicometria (1926), 3rd Ed. 1991, FEB, Brasilia / DF.
The author begins his talented work by stating that Psychometrics is just one of the clairvoyance modalities, and that it (Psychometrics) belongs to its enigmas ... Countless enigmas... He mentions that, by the psychometric hypothesis, the owner of an object impregnates it with a real "influence", which has the property of receiving and retaining all kinds of vibrations and physical, psychic and vital emanations.
However, for Bozzano, such psychometric powers of a living person are largely imaginary and that such “influence” only persists in the psychometric object, enabling action by the clairvoyant and telepathic faculty of the sensitive (here, clairvoyance and telepathy are considered “satellites” of Psycometrics...).
Commenting on this, Professor Bozzano states that his opinion does not invalidate the hypothesis of other thinkers, who believed that the object, itself, would reveal its history. He also deduces about the existence of a “personal human fluid” (I think it would be the same “mesmerian magnetic fluid”, from Buchanan), connecting to objects. And he concludes: “the joining of the biographical secrets of inanimate matter, remains much more mysterious”. (More enigmas, as he registered in his book…).
There are countless other reflections in Bozzano's work, as well as countless narrations of psychometric cases - there is no room for a simple, very elementary article. I suggest reading the exciting book.
Bozzano comments, remarkably, that there are sensitives who, sometimes, are able to get in contact with the vegetable and animal kingdoms, to the point of identifying with the influence contained in the psychometric object, that one would say to appropriate the sensations, the understandings, the vibrations and rudimentary sensations of the studied organisms or substance. The author repeats these comments several times in his work.
Note: The word “influence” mentioned earlier, is widely used by Bozzano in his book. Most of the time, referring to human influence; but, also, so many times are mentioned as "influence" of a psychometric character the "animal influence" and "plant influence". And also ... "mineral influence". There are dozens and dozens of psychometric cases in the book, with all these “influences”.
● In the book “Nos Dominios da Mediunidade” (1954), by the Spirit Andre Luiz and a psychography by the unforgettable Chico Xavier, in the 8th edition, Ch. 26 (Psychometrics), p. 245, Ed. FEB, 1976, Brasilia / DF, Instructor Aulus teaches: “Psychometry means registration, appreciation of intellectual activity. However, in mediumistic works, this word designates the faculty of reading impressions and memories when in contact with common objects”.
Continuing, Aulus reports that: “thought spreads its own emanations wherever it is projected, leaving spiritual traces where the rays of the mind are thrown. Like the animal, which leaves its characteristic odor in its track, making it, therefore, easily accessible by the dog's olfactory sensibility”.
That Instructor, in the same chapter, pronounces a relevant phrase: “Souls and things, each in the position in which they are located, preserve something of time and space, which are eternal in the memory of life” (until now Psychometrics has only been fixed in the past...).
A little further in this work, on p. 249, on the same subject, Aulus clarifies about the possibility of psychometric events, linked to people of the present. Closing the chapter, he informs that psychometric events are mediumistic, although experimenters from the scientific world frame them in “pragmatic cryptesthesia”, in “tactile metagnomy”, in “telesthesia”; summarizing the terms, these words mean practically the same (psychometric action), with small variations.
Note: I mention only these three parapsychological names of Psychometrics, but there are many others (see in the Dictionary of Parapsychology, Metapsychics and Spiritism, already mentioned).
● In the book “Chico Xavier - Mandato de Amor”, by UEM (Uniao Espirita Mineira), Ed. 1992, BH / MG, there are countless testimonies of people who lived with the late medium. By their comments, one learns about Chico's accurate psychometric mediumship, such as, for example, "reading" without opening the content of the countless letters he received from people who wrote to him. The reports are so many, and so interesting, as well as instructive, that I suggest reading the book.
● In the book “Devassando o Invisivel” (1963), by Yvonne A. Pereira, 9th Ed. 1994, p. 188, FEB, Brasilia / DF, among other comments on Psychometrics, the author notes: (...) This strange and beautiful faculty, still little studied, goes to the extreme of allowing the medium to feel and describe the impressions of small animals, vegetables and even inanimate matter”.
Yvonne (medium of blessed mediums, including psychometrics), still in the same work, reports a visit she made to a friendly family, staying there for a few days. Sleepless, she watched scenes typical of slavery. In another, modern residence, the same phenomenon: without sleeping, she watched dramatic scenes of duels, fights, assaults, escapes on horseback (18th century environment).
Her only explanation: ambient psychometry 4.
Magnetic sleepwalking and Psychometrics
Before ending, I mention instigating somnambulistic narratives, which may be associated with the present psychometrics study:
- In the book “O Espiritismo Perante a Ciencia”, by Gabriel Delanne (1857-1926), 1st edition 1885, in the edition consulted at www.ebookespírita.org, (on the internet), the author registers, in the Second Part, Item III – Sonambulismo Magnetico, countless experiments carried out with sleepwalkers, in a sleepy state caused by a magnetizer.
Among the various mentioned experiences (I picked them out from pages 86 to 91), many refer, I think, to an apparent psychometrics faculty. I am referring to people who, with their eyes blindfolded, can read documents, pages of books, identify the location of a hidden clock and the time it shows, as well as, still with their eyes closed, read by the palm of their hand (!); if this is not enough, they unfold spiritually and go to distant places, narrating what is happening there. From the records, of these and other experiences, everything happens in the present time (of the experiences).
This classic work of Spiritism” is extremely important for those interested in proving the existence of the Spirit, in addition to knowing extraordinary human faculties that Science cannot explain.
But Spiritism, objectively, yes! Even with gentle simplicity...
Conclusion
In closing, I record below how exactly in the distant past there is an example that Psychometrics (as, indeed, all other mediumistic) was already an active mediumistic faculty, and in the example, psychometric action of happening in the future (!):
In “Acts of the Apostles”, 21 to 25, there is the narrative that the prophet (medium) Agabus, faithful follower of Jesus, arrived from Judea and, being with the followers of Christ, took the strap that belonged to Paulo de Tarsus, and tied his own feet and hands, saying, "This is what the Spirit says: so the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man to whom this strap belongs, and hand him over to the Gentiles. Based on this prophecy, Paul's friends urged him not to go to Jerusalem, as they feared for his life. Despite this, he went up to Jerusalem and there the tribune Claudio Lisias imprisoned him in the Fortress, in order to save him from the agitated mob.
Having heard of a plan to assassinate the Apostle, Lysias transferred him to Caesarea, escorted by four hundred soldiers, archers and cavalrymen, handing him over to Governor Felix.
Agabus' prophecy was fulfilled: Paul was interrogated and strapped on by the Gentiles.
From what I deduced when writing this article, I imagine that the Wisdom of Providence endows some mediums with psychometrics ability for the high tasks of helping others. By exercising psychometrics mediumship, they have faith in the charity of Jesus and trust in the invisible Protectors who support them, resulting in awakening in the attested behavioral changes, so as not to repeat atavistic moral deviations.
In the future, for example, I reflect that earthly medicine will employ psychometrics on a large scale, diagnosing in the present the causes of pathologies that began in the past...
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1 Notes extracted from the “Dictionary of Parapsychology, Metapsychics and Spiritism”, by Joao Teixeira de Paula (1911-1985), volume 3, p. 89 and 90, Ed. 1970, Empresa Grafica of the Revista dos Tribunais S.A., SP / SP.
2 Grande Larousse Cultural Encyclopedia, volume 8, p. 2673, Ed. Universo Ltda., 1990, SP / SP.
3 The term parapsychology was coined in 1889 by Max Dessoir (1867-1937), a German philosopher, and adopted in the 1930s by Joseph Banks Rhine, to replace the terms Metapsychic and "Psychic Research" - notes taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia of Internet.
4 “Environmental psychometrics” is one that, in spite of the sensitive, allows him to review, in any environment, the occurrences verified there long before, sometimes even centuries (!). |
